Fire and Other Deadly Smiles
by Joker88
Summary: Yet another Joker one-shot. Who sets A fire-man on fire? I think you can guess. If you read, review.


_**The Joker comes in later. Just bear with me here, I wanted to do it from a firefighters perspective. Remember in Dark Knight, when the police were transporting Harvey Dent to county jail, and there was an obstruction that forced the armored car to go below street level?**_

_**That was a fire truck... on fire. Well anyway. This came to me. **_

I stared at the devastation around me. So much death, It hung around in heavy clouds, suffocating me in a way that smoke never had.

My partner was dead, got caught in an office. I was running out of time.

When I took this job, I had expected to save people, do something , run from burning buildings with a wailing infant in my arms. Smile for the camera.

I'd be invited to party's and smile bashfully when elegant people told me I was a hero.

Now I just hope and pray that I don't have to be the one going in and seeing all those bodies.

Another blast shook the building and I fell to the floor, winded. My legs had turned to jelly but I forced myself up. I looked down the hall, I couldn't remember which way I had come from. Damnit, I needed to get out, but the wrong decision could find me in the awkward position of loosing my life or at least my legs or an arm.

Why hadn't I picked a nice job, one where you didn't have to work to hard, where you didn't see mangled, crispy remains of women and children. Where you didn't have nightmares about their screams when you could do nothing to save them.

It's a horrible death, to burn. To be able to see the pieces of your flesh melt and warp then blow away as you scrabble for an escape, any escape. And then have your eyes boil in your sockets and be left with only your voice wailing into your ears until those too are eaten by flames.

I'm going mad with all the voices echoing in my ears, the screams of mothers trying to get to their children, the yowling of cats and dogs as they scratch at doors and cages.

And sometimes it's friends, coworkers, as their exits are blocked off and they know what is about to happen to them.

Who knew that stone walls could burn so easily, be engulfed by the deafening roar of heat and pain.

I'm in a fucking bank. My bank. Where my money is held. I was supposed to go this morning and get a transaction on the apartment done.

The money is still in the safe, I can see it through the metal bars. They are warping now, twisting under pressure and the rising temperature. I can see the hazy form of someone up ahead, running for a door. I call out to them, though I know they can't hear me. He, for the figure was definitely male, was rushing for a door on my left.

I turned, hearing a groaning behind me, and leapt with agility that I didn't know that I had. I crashed onto the ground. Rubble twice my size crashed an inch from my foot.

I looked back down the hallway, there was no escape. I got up as fast as my bulky suit would allow and ran to the door that the man had come through.

Along my way I saw the desperate face of a woman in an office, her mouth was opened in a helpless cry of pain and hope as she saw me. Her hair was on fire but she paid it no head, banging on the door with all her might.

I met her eyes for an instant, and I saw myself there, terrified. I ran on, animalistic fear purging thought from my mind, and instead pushing me through the door where only minutes before a man had entered.

It was the stairs, The landing below me was an inferno, I could feel the hunger of the fire pressing against my eyes. The only way to go was up.

So I climbed, I threw myself up those stairs, trying not to breathe too much smoke. I dodged every landing as I felt flames under the doors

At last my aching legs carried me through the doors and onto the roof. I hacked, spilling myself onto the rough concrete.

The air felt good on my overheated, oxygen depleted lungs. It felt like cool water was trickling through my veins. For a moment I just lay there, my eyes closed from the glare of the sun.

Another explosion rocked the buildings foundations but I could care less, For a few moments the terrifying fire would be left behind.

And then I remember the woman behind the door. The one who had looked at me with hope before suffering a painful death.  
I threw up.

Something blocked the sun from my face and I squinted up.

A man, not very tall, but extremely lean. He knelt down to where I was lying and I felt irrational fear surge through me.

"Not a cop? Well, lookie here, we have a firefighter."

It was the Joker. I could see those scars, winding up his face like red vines straining for his ears.

He smiled.

"The fire's behind you. I think you should go and fight it."

He picked me up, in the heavy suit and helmet and half dragged me to the stairs. He was laughing, and I was still trying to remember where my feet were and why I was on the roof and especially how I ended up with the Joker.

I finally broke out of my shock and halted our progress, planting both feet down and shaking myself out of his grasp.

He turned around, his real lips pointed down in an exaggerated pout."What's the matter? Can't take the heat?"

The fire behind me reflected in his eyes, and I realized that there are worse deaths than by fire. And one of them would be at the hands of this lunatic.

He moved towards me and i found my voice. "W-Wait, How are you going to get down?"

There was a way out of this. I knew where the fire escape was, I could reach it. But if he had another way down he could just dispose of me.

"Trying to buy yourself into my bad graces?" The Joker laughed, his chest heaving.

Another explosion rocked the cement and I staggered to my knees. The joker on the other had remained on his feet, riding the tremor like the captain of a boat in a storm.

I could feel the bile rising in my throat.

But before I could choke on his the Joker had me again, and with one shove I was flung back into the doomed building. I hit the door with my shoulder. I could see the clown on the roof. I howled and pounded but It wasn't any use. Gotham citizens had long ago strengthened their roof doors to foil thieves looking for an easy way in.

I screamed profanities at him.

The Joker waved to me with a nightmare grin o his face and stepped backwards off the roof.

I stopped breathing for a moment waiting for him to fall, but he laughed, embracing the sky. He saluted the police on the streets below and began to dance his way through the air.

And In a flash of light I saw what he was standing on.

A wire, a long thin steel cable under his feet.

He was walking to the building across the street.

And hundreds of feet in the air, he was spinning and jumping on the rope, keeping his balance as the wind and his movement sent his purple coat flapping around his legs.

Now a bigger explosion hammered the bank, and I felt all the breath whoosh out of me and I fell down the stairs, every step that hit my body every sharp piece of metal that struck my flesh, it was all the Joker.

The Joker had murdered me.

I would never save another pitiful life, I would never be on the front page of _Gotham Daily_. Well, maybe as a pile of ashes.

I hit the landing with a resounding crack. I could still see a sliver of the Joker. A speck, rapidly disappearing from sit.

The explosion hadn't shaken him at all.

And as the smoke invaded my lungs and the fire lay against my suit I heard his laughter echoing in my ears.

And I finally got the joke.

He had set a firefighter on fire.

**Please Review. Wouldn't it be awesome if everyone who read it took time from their daily lives to review?**

**I can see your cursor hovering over the 'go' button. Right next to the pale lavender 'review bar. And I can see you thinking... _I have so many other things to do. But This'll make her so happy..._ Because it will make me happy. I will get down and pray to you if you just left click that tiny little button...**


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